Drivers strike over, buses rolling

Agreement reached Thursday, so parents won't have to transport students again.

October 30, 2009|By Frank Warner and Daniel Patrick Sheehan OF THE MORNING CALL

Two days after bus drivers went on strike in the East Penn School District, the Teamsters union and the First Student bus company agreed on a new contract that returns the district's schedule to normal today.

"The strike is over," Superintendent Thomas Seidenberger said Thursday night. "I've confirmed it with both the union and corporate that there's a resolution, and the district will resume all normal operations [Friday]."

Seidenberger said he heard from the Teamsters at 8:21 p.m. Thursday that a new contract had been reached. He then called First Student officials for the confirmation.

By 8:40 p.m., East Penn's automated phone alerts were going out to parents throughout the school district.

The strike closed down the district Wednesday, but all schools reopened Thursday, with parents, students, staff and others pitching in to make sure everyone got to school.

"In East Penn, people value an education, and that was on display today," Seidenberger said.

He called Thursday miraculous, but said he'll be relieved for a return to normalcy today.

On Thursday, hundreds of students found alternate transportation to school, a process that threatened chaos but turned out to be fairly smooth.

"The ladies are flying us in and getting us out," said Jenny Krowitz as she dropped her son, Andrew, at Lincoln Elementary School in Emmaus shortly before 9 a.m. She was referring to the Lincoln Elementary School staffers who helped police with traffic control around the building, where arrival and departure is somewhat hectic even on normal days.

Because First Student is a private contractor, school district officials were not privy to what the company was offering or what the Teamsters were seeking.

The two-day strike took most district officials, parents and students by surprise.

The district put a notice online and in its newsletter that there was a potential for a strike, but even the superintendent was taken aback when he received a call at 8:41 p.m. Tuesday telling him of the walkout. Given the late notice, he said he had no choice but to cancel Wednesday's classes.

"We thought they were making progress," Seidenberger said. "I was getting routine updates, then we really didn't hear anything for a week or 10 days."

The district last year inked a five-year deal with First Student, which transports 4 million students and employs 68,000 bus drivers nationwide. East Penn will pay a little more than $4 million for services this year, with fees increasing 2.75 percent each year through the remainder of the contract.

The contract does not specify what First Student pays its drivers, and the company has refused to say.

Few knew what to expect when the district decided to reopen schools Thursday and make students' parents responsible for finding other transportation. Some dismissal times were altered to minimize the amount of school traffic on the roads at the same time.

Emmaus police Sgt. Karl Geschwindt doesn't usually help with traffic control on school days, but he went to the high school Thursday morning to make sure there were no safety issues because of the strike.

"We really didn't know what to expect," Geschwindt said. "From the standpoint of what transpired today, it went really well."

Seidenberger said the strike was disruptive, but he has "mixed feelings" about whether it would affect decisions on

whether to stick with privatized transportation in the future. He used to work for the Brick Township, N.J., School District, which had its own transportation fleet, and said it was a tremendous investment of time and resources.

With complex scheduling demands, difficulty in finding certified bus mechanics and constant maintenance of the 134-bus fleet, "it was very difficult to find efficiencies," he said. By contrast, private contractors provide the buses, drivers and mechanics at substantial savings.

"To move now to our own operation, I'm not sure we would have the wherewithal," Seidenberger said. "We would not have money to build a garage or staging area."

First Student drivers had been employees of Laidlaw International until First Group, a company based in the United Kingdom, acquired Laidlaw in February 2007 and began operating it under its North American subsidiary, First Student.

First Student is one of the top 10 employers of Teamsters union employees. East Penn's drivers organized with the Teamsters in January and sought to negotiate an initial contract with the company seven months ago.